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Between mid-1995 and mid-2005, PLAAS published a total of five books, 21 research reports, 49 occasionalpapers, 23 policy briefs and eight newsletters and information bulletins. A great deal of effort has gone intoproducing high-quality publications in terms of both their content and their design and layout. Demand forPLAAS publications is consistently high, and many have had to be reprinted. Income derived from saleshelps to meet the costs of reprinting.PLAAS researchers also publish widely in a range of other contexts. Since 1995 a total of 40 journal articlesand 53 book chapters have appeared with PLAAS staff members as authors or co-authors. Researchers havealso authored or co-authored 64 research reports, 21 occasional papers and 15 policy briefs, and 38 articlesby them have appeared in popular magazines and newspapers.In addition to their publications, PLAAS researchers are regularly asked for comment by a wide range ofnewspapers, magazines and radio and television programmes, both locally and abroad.CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPSAND SEMINARSPLAAS organisesPLAAS organises conferences, symposia, workshops and seminars to disseminate research findings and tocreate forums for discussion and debate of their wider significance and policy implications.conferences, symposia,workshops and seminarsto disseminate researchfindingsNotable occasions in the last ten years include the Land and Agrarian Reform Conference of July 1999,organised in collaboration with the National Land Committee, and attended by over 200 researchers,government officials and NGO staff members, and the international symposium on Contested Resources:Challenges to the Governance of Natural Resources in Southern Africa, held in October 2000, with over 100participants. This was organised in collaboration with UWC’s Centre for Southern African Studies, and drewresearchers from across the region.Other highlights include a symposium on African Perspectives: Land and Sustainable Development,organised by PLAAS, the National Land Committee, and the African Institute for Agrarian Studies duringthe World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg in August 2002, and aninternational workshop on Tenure Reform in Africa: Lessons for the Communal Land Rights Bill, held in July2002. In October 2002, PLAAS and the Norwegian Fisheries College at the University of Tromsø, Norway, cohostedan international symposium on Transformation of the South African Fishing Industry.A workshop on Rangelands at Equilibrium and Non-equilibrium at the VII th International Rangelands Congressin Durban in July 2003 was organised in collaboration with the Leslie Hill Institute for Plant Conservation ofUCT and the Botany Department at Rhodes University, and attracted a great deal of attention.Smaller international events in the past ten years include five regional workshops on issues of communitybasednatural resource management, organised jointly with the Centre for Applied Social Sciences ofthe University of Zimbabwe, several continent-wide workshops as part of the collaborative Pan-AfricanProgramme on Land and Resource Rights, and a number of international workshops on co-management offisheries.A large number of national and provincial workshops have been organised by PLAAS researchers to discussresearch findings on ethical trade in the fruit and wine industries, trends in the agricultural labour market,poverty and inequality, sustainable livelihoods, communal rangeland management, biodiversity conservationand land restitution, and land and agrarian reform policies.A regular PLAAS seminar series includes presentations by PLAAS researchers as well as South African andinternational visitors; a total of 67 seminars, on a wide range of topics, have been held since 1995.5
PLAAS has establishedthe first post-graduateprogramme in Land andAgrarian Studies in thecountry and in the regionTEACHING ANDSUPERVISIONPLAAS has established the first post-graduate programme in Land and Agrarian Studies in the country andin the region. Teaching and supervision is currently undertaken for Post-Graduate Diploma, MPhil and PhDstudents. The programme aims to meet an identified demand in the land and agrarian reform sector in theSouthern African region for post-graduate training in policy analysis skills, and to service a range of careeroptions within these sectors (e.g. planners, policy makers, fieldworkers and researchers). Most students arein full-time employment, and teaching takes place in three intensive ‘block-release’ periods during the year.The specific objective of the programme is to develop appropriate knowledge and skills that will enable policymakers, planners, managers, researchers and field workers in the sector to:• conceptualise key policy issues of land and agrarian reform• analyse problems of policy formulation and programme design• plan effective programmes and projects• undertake research on important questions of policy and practice.Most MPhil students write mini-theses. The MPhil by full thesis and PhD degrees are generally pursued bythose students who intend to work as researchers or academics.The first PLAAS PhD student was registered in 1997. The Post-Graduate Diploma and MPhil coursecommenced in 2001 and numbers have risen steadily over the past four years, attracting students fromNamibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Tanzania as well as South Africa. At present 85 students areregistered, including seven PhD students, 31 MPhil and 47 Diploma students. Graduates to date number 22.Throughput of students is slower than anticipated, mainly due to the demanding nature of part-time study forthose in full-time employment.In 2003, PLAAS won the Group Award from UWC’s Division for Lifelong Learning for its innovative approachto recognition of prior learning for entrants to the post-graduate programme.In addition to undertaking teaching and supervision on Land and Agrarian Studies, PLAAS staff also teachon the Rural Development and Natural Resource Management modules offered by the School of Governmentand on the Development Studies programme at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. They giveoccasional lectures in the Rural Development module offered by the Institute of Social Development at UWC,and in different departments at the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch.PLAAS has been animportant provider ofshort course and inservicetraining to theland and agrarian reformsectorSHORT COURSE TRAININGPLAAS has been an important provider of short course and in-service training to the land and agrarianreform sector. Since 1996, PLAAS researchers, often in collaboration with Rick de Satgé of DevelopmentalServices, have been commissioned to design and develop a range of short courses customised to meet theneeds of different government departments (notably the Department of Land Affairs) and NGOs (amongstothers the National Land Committee and its affiliates, and the Women on Farms Project). Some courses havebeen regional in scope, and have drawn participants from across southern Africa and have been offered incollaboration with the Land Tenure Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Centre for AppliedLegal Studies (CALS) at Wits, and others with the Centre for Applied Social Sciences at the University ofZimbabwe.Courses have included the following: Land Tenure and Policy in South Africa; Tenure Basics; Land RestitutionPolicy and Procedures; Land Use and Livelihoods; The Integration of Environmental Planning into LandReform; Governance in Community-Based Natural Resource Management; Social Science Perspectives onNatural Resource Management.A total of over 500 participants have attended these courses, and their evaluations of the training they havereceived have been overwhelmingly positive.6
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